Nikki isn't burnt
by Rozablood
Summary: Just a little oneshot based off the end of Tick... Tick... Tick... because I am obsessed. The title should say the rest.


**N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !**

**Okay, so now that that's out of the way…**

**I have recently become obsessed with Castle. I mean, I have watched it from the beginning, but now it has become an all consuming obsession. And after Tick… Tick… Tick…, I just had to write this.**

**Okay, sorry it's so late but I didn't get to watch it until just yesterday (GO DVR!!) and my mom was the one to give me inspiration for this because she gave me this possibility and she didn't watch it until about an hour ago (I always do A/Ns last, so true fact) so give me a little wiggle room.**

**One more thing, I am an amateur. I am not professional. So, obviously I do not own _Castle_.**

_"KATE!!!!"_

Rick watched helplessly as the windows were torn apart with the sheer force of the explosion. A single screen floated almost gracefully to the ground, and Rick followed its movements, sinking slowly and dejectedly to his knees. The whole thing seemed to be going in slow motion.

"Kate…"

It was over. It was all over.

_"We could always just cuddle, Castle."_

_"You should hear me say 'fallacious'."_

_"Are you looking at porn?"_

_"If we're married, I want a divorce."_

_"There is one hot, sexy, kinky thing I do like doing."_

_"I will have you know, Mr. Castle, I sleep with a gun."_

_"Maybe flying monkeys helped ditch the body."_

_"It's more likely he had a sexual fetish."_

_"That's hardly the take-away here, Castle."_

_"Castle."_

_"Castle.."_

_"Castle..."_

He heard her voice distantly in his mind, just past the edge of the explosion, as if she were goading him on, daring him to come get her.

_"Catch me if you can."_

His fist closed tightly around the phone in his hand, and just as he was about to take it and chuck it into the fire where the rest of his life had been lost, her voice stopped him. Her actual voice, not the cheap imitation of it playing in his mind.

"Castle? _Castle?!_ Are you okay? Castle? Are you there?"

He held the phone tighter, for that seemed to be from where the voice, that lovely, smooth, reassuring voice, was coming from.

"Kate?" he whispered, hoping against hope that this wasn't some hallucination his mind was pulling on him.

"Castle? Oh, thank God. Where are you?" Her voice was there, it was. He knew it. Somehow, she was still alive.

"I'm," his voice came out raspy from the smoke and he had to clear his throat. "I'm outside you're burning building. Where are you?"

She sighed in relief. _At least he wasn't in the building, _she caught herself thinking. "I'm in the hotel on 42nd. Room 212. I had a bad feeling, so I stayed here."

He sighed in his own relief. "I'm coming to get you."

She quickly replied, "No, no. If my apartment just blew up and he sees me walking around as though nothing happened, I might get shot. _You_ might get shot."

"I'm coming anyway. You don't have to leave. I'll call Alexis and tell her you're okay and she'll call the precinct. I'm coming whether you like it or not," he added, sensing her about to interrupt him."

She sighed again, this time in exasperation. "Fine," she conceded, "but at least give me ten minutes to get dressed. I was in the shower."

The line went dead before he could reply, but that was just fine. As it was Rick could see the 12th precinct's second best detectives appear out of their black suburban. He watched as Ryan and Esposito, followed by Montgomery, walked as close as they dared to the burning building, uncharacteristic tears in all their eyes. They hadn't seen Rick, but he planned to change that soon.

Rick ran up to the detectives and their boss, shouting their names. Ryan heard first and turned, quickly follow by his partner. Soon all three had eyes on him, though he could tell they were taking sneak peaks at the building.

"She's alive!" he shouted, unnecessary as he was standing right next to them now.

"How?" Ryan asked dejectedly, like he didn't want to hear it.

"She's in a hotel," he answered excitedly, and all six eyes brightened.

"Where?" Esposito asked.

Rick didn't answer. Instead he turned and ran to the street, calling a cab. In all the wreckage there wasn't one to be seen, so he ran a couple blocks north until he saw civilization again. He quickly called a cab and rattled off the address. Throwing a hundred on the cabbies lap, he told him he could keep the change if he moved fast.

The whole drive only took fourteen minutes.

x.X.x

Rick hardly paid attention to anyone else as he sprinted through the building. The elevators were taking too long, so he charged toward the stairs. He had been in this building before; he knew where the room was.

In no time at all—yet all the time in the world—he reached the seventh floor and was knocking on Kate's door.

She opened the door slowly, for there was no peephole and though she was almost positive it was Castle, she couldn't take any chances.

Rick was in the room before the door was even halfway open, coming—for the second time that week—face to face (or should I say barrel?) with Beckett's gun. He yelped in surprise and feebly put his hands out in front of him in an attempt to shield himself.

Kate (when she was pointing a gun at him, she was Beckett, other than that she was most definitely Kate) quickly lowered her gun. "Oh, thank God," she said. "It's just you."

Rick took her in a massive embrace before she even had the words out of her mouth. His arms wrapped around her back, and as he straightened, she could feel her feet leave the floor.

For once, she didn't care.

Her arms sealed themselves around his neck—only then did she realize she'd dropped her gun—and she wrapped her legs around his waist in an attempt to hold herself up. She put her head on his shoulder and tightened her grip on him.

"God, Kate," Rick murmured in her ear. "Don't ever do that to me again. I thought I had lost you."

Kate could feel his hot tears running down her neck and her own down her face. She didn't reply to him, instead moved her head so that she was looking him dead in the eye. She moved one of her hands to caress his face, and before she even knew what she was doing, her mouth was on his in a slow, sweet kiss.

Rick, completely flabbergasted, took a second to respond, but when he did, it wasn't the heat and passion that Kate had expected from him. It showed the same emotion as hers did, a sweet, heady kiss, one that showed you weren't afraid to show emotion. One that said all the words you were too scared to voice aloud.

It was perfect. It was breathtaking. It was earth moving.

But best of all, it was timeless.


End file.
